‘Black Rock Shooter Arcana’ social game features familiar characters in an original setting

Strategy and Partners, proprietors of the Madoka Magica Online browser game, announced today that they’re working with Good Smile Company and Tetsujin Inc on Black Rock Shooter Arcana, a social game for smart and feature phones that takes the series’ familiar characters and places them in an original setting with completely redone artwork – to be provided by numerous talented illustrators whose art styles are appropriate for BRS.

Almost everything in this next Black Rock Shooter project – story, universe, character design – is redone anew. Fans’ favourite characters will appear in costumes different from those they wore before in past BRS works, and wield different weapons.

Story Synopsis

In the year 20XX, a powerful communication tool known as Rails was released to consumers that let anyone easily connect to virtually anyone else on the planet.

Naturally, Rails grew to become the dominant form of communication in the world, to the point that it’s fairly common for folks to refer to one another as “Rail friends” (heh, a pun on “real friends”? The original Japanese term is “レル友”).

As Rails’s base of users grew exponentially, however, so did the small number of select users who lose their consciousness due to some sort of unexplained accident while connected to Rails. This phenomenon has come to be termed “Flatline Status” (フラットライン症状), and continues to flummox all of the world’s scientists.

In Black Rock Shooter Arcana, you, the player, are a user of Rails. And our story begins one day when you were looking through the list of top free-to-use Rails apps. A fortune-telling app – Arcana – that has received numerous raving reviews and whose predictions were said to be incredibly accurate, holds your gaze.

You recall hearing about Arcana in the past, having heard about the fortune-telling app’s uncanny rate of making accurate predictions in review articles and hearsay. And so with a speck of curiosity you install the fortune-telling app and start it up, only to be greeted by a mysterious black-haired girl.

Thus begins your questing days within the mysterious world of Black Rock Shooter Arcana.

Quests

When Rails users – such as the player – start up the Arcana app, from time to time they may be greeted with the mysterious black-haired girl who will task them with quests.

Clear these quests with your Rail friends, and you may eventually get to the bottom of all of the game’s mysteries. Some key words: the black-haired girl, “tarot”, “Arcana”.

“Tarot” – cards with the power to seal and ‘connect’

Aiding you in your quest are these “tarot” cards, which are said to possess powers sealed within them that you may call upon. The powers of Black Rock Shooter and her peers, that is.

So far, Dead Master (DM), Strength (STR), and Black Gold Saw (BGS) are confirmed to be making an appearance in BRS Arcana. The game is also said to feature completely new characters to be announced sometime in the future.

What’s interesting about BRS Arcana is that tarot cards in the game do not just revolve around characters. Rather, each card consists of three components: artifact (character), Arcana, and weapon.

As a result, even when two players possess, say, the same Dead Master tarot card, they won’t actually possess the exact same one. The weapon, Arcana, and stats may be different.

Battle of Fortunes

Once you’ve assembled a team of tarot cards, you can participate in battles – written in Japanese as “占闘(セントウ)” which suggests that these are battles of fortunes to determine which fortune-telling prediction will pan out.

Depending on the combination and spread of your tarot cards, you may receive bonuses that may aid you in combat.

New character design from illustrator Taiki (タイキ氏)

As part of today’s announcement, one of the illustrators who will be working on the social game was revealed to be Taiki. He’s provided the following character design for Black Rock Shooter, and is also said to be working on a new character – who wields a drastically different type of weapon – that will be introduced into the game sometime after service begins.

Black Rock Shooter Arcana will begin service sometime in late November, on a variety of platforms (iOS and Android for smartphones, and feature phones). Over at the official website, which also opened today, fans can download PC and Twitter wallpapers based on the social game’s new look.

Potential players who follow Black Rock Shooter Arcana’s official twitter account will also be eligible to receive the following card once service begins: